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Finally broke down and bought Match Point in the VERY cheap bin at Walmart. Woody Allen is a genius, and his writing keeps getting better. I don't laugh uncontrollably out loud that much, but their is one scene ending, one shot, that I lost it. Unbelievable. Great film, highly recommended.

i recently picked up ocean's 11, 12 and 13. 11 and 13 are very cool and quite slick. 12 is a tad sluggish and slow. however, czj adds tremendous pizazz to any movie she graces so it's ok.i really dig the series in general. lots of fun to watch.

Watched "Blindness" last night. Not at all what I was expecting - Julianne Moore is fantastic (as always) in a very creepy, very unpleasant film. (Stop here if you don't want to know too much...) It starts as a tale of what happens when people start inexplicably going blind, and get quarantined by the powers that be. It morphs into a "Lord of the Flies"-like tale of survival, and explores what people will do when they answer to nobody, and what others will do to survive when they have no choice...

In the vein of the excellent "Children of Men" (or "I Am Legend"), but not nearly as good - still worth a viewing if you like post-apocalyptic tales and aren't put off by some unpleasantness...

Logged

I wish I was a Glowworm; a Glowworm's never glum. 'Cause how can you be grumpy, when the sun shines out your bum?

Dave - Arrested Development is one of my all time favorite tv shows - you'll be buying seasons 2 and 3 (only a half season) very quickly. It's one you can watch over and over as the jokes tend to be hinted at episodes before they happen and then called back over and over again in subtle ways. Brilliant - utterly brilliant show.

We picked up Weeds on sale at Best Buy - all four seasons for $14.99 each. For a show that's supposed to be brilliant - neither of use are "getting it" yet. Listed as a Comedy - Drama... why do they always put Comedy in front of Drama in descriptions when a show is almost 99% drama and just a minor hint of comedy... Unless it's coming later? Not sure if we'll keep season 2, 3, and 4... we'll see after we get into a few more episodes. Acting and writing are good - it's just depressing... maybe we're just not in the right mood???

Torchwood - Children of Earth. Wow, this was actually a really good miniseries and was very surprised/shocked at the end but kind of understand maybe some need for atonement from Capt. Jack Harkness. Still it was very very good. And Eve Myles is always pleasant on the eyes ;-)

Doctor Who's Planet of the Dead was *ok* compared (but only 75 mins/1 night vs 5 nights) and one good thing was it had Michelle Ryan (aka Bionic Woman (thought she looked hotter on that show though)).

Now wondering if Torchwood is going to come back for another season seeing what happened in the last season and this miniseries.

T w i n P e a k s - We just bought the Gold Box dvd's which have the pilot and both seasons (we previously had the 1st season they released back in 2001... which didn't have the pilot...). Wow - once again reminded what a brilliant series Twin Peaks was... the mood, the music, the lingering shots, the quirkiness, the coffee... good acting (and some fun campy bad acting)...

Lord of the Rings ... in 20 minute increments... - on my lunch hours for several weeks now I've been watching the extended LOTR discs... Yes - it's humorous to be watching in 15 to 20 minute chunks every day. The battle of Helm's Deep just started. Since I have Friday afternoon's off from work - I do get a bit of extra watching time today!

The Donna Reed Show season 2 - just bought this set and Heidi and I love (love love love) old tv shows.

Matlock season 2 - I love mystery tv. Columbo and Murder She Wrote spin frequently every weekend (we love our "mystery sunday's..." - and I've always enjoyed Matlock. Season 1 wasn't so hot for Matlock - it started to gel from season 2 onwards.

Donna Reed, oh my, she is such a babe. Between her, Diana Rigg and Gene Tierney, wow!

We've been on trilogy marathons this week. We did the Bourne trilogy first half of the week, now we're on The Pirates of the Caribbean.We couldn't remember much of the Bourne stuff. There was one funny part in an extra. I watched the New York car chase on the third flick, and during one of the wrecks, I had to stop and rewind a few times. There is a ruler-on-a-table used in the background during the crashes. We're watching the last of the POTC movies tonight. Watched the second one last night (Dead Man's Chest). I didn't care too much for it the first time I saw it, but the second time through was great.

Diana Rigg... oddly enough - we were looking at TMZ.com this morning at the "memba them?" section and she popped up - a shot of her in her Emma Peel days with a shot from a couple years ago. (yes we sometimes do goofy internet browsing over breakfast! check the weather, what's the special of day on QVC, I look at tvshowsondvd.com...)

I love the Avengers - Heid bought me the Emma Peel Mega-Set dvd box for my birthday the first year we had a DVD player. It was huge... 16 full sized dvd cases in a big yellow and orange box... (I've since eliminated 90% of my dvd cases instead opting to put them all in media holders...). The re-release of the Emma Peel set is in slimline cases and includes a bonus disc I didn't get.

At least companies finally started figuring out they didn't need to put everything in big huge plastic cases!

I think they spread shows over more discs than required (HBO, Showcase...)to justify a higher price. A 13 episode season could fit on 3 or 4 discs maxand not 5 or 6. Then you add fat packaging that makes it look bigger.

The new Buffy/Angel re-releases are super slim and won't take up a whole shelf. Nice - but I already have the old ones.

Bill Binkelman

Saw District 9 Thursday at a screening sponsored by aintitcool.com and was blown away...one of the most intense, provocative and disturbing movies I've seen in many many years. It's a very cynical, but IMO right on, evaluation of how we treat those who are different from us. The political and social allegories are contained within a well-made suspenseful "action" movie although this is much more intelligent and non-cliche than 99.9 percent of action movies, esp. SF ones. Several gut-wrenching scenes that almost reduced me to sobs. The movie also features one of the most complex lead characters - a person who doesn't have a simple "bad guy to good guy" arc, but is much more fleshed out. It's a very depressing film and even though some folks laughed at some scenes, I think there is only one scene that inspires laughter, and I'll bet Peter Jackson had a hand in it as it resembles the humor from his films such as Bad Taste, Dead-Alive, and Meet the Feebles. But other than that one "laugh" this is a grim and disheartening film, although bloody brilliant and, in a certain way, entertaining at times. Definitely not for the squeamish, esp. if Cronenberg's The Fly made you queasy. Extremely violent, both physically and emotionally. The final shot in the film just tears you apart - it is so tenderly poignant yet so horrifically tragic.

I wouldn't be suprised if we could do a Star Trek thread here. Anyway...

I love the original, and really liked Voyager (my wife and I plan on getting the entire series for Christmas), but NG never did it for me. The movies are great, but the series was lame. Wesley Crusher REALLY got on my nerves, as did Data. I can only watch so much of a robot saying things like "What does it mean to feel?" before it begins to grate down my spine. Captain Picard is a wimp compared to Kirk or even Janeway. Always sending someone else on the away team. (Away team, how creative. "Number two, go away!") Riker has the personality of a paper towel (albeit, a good director). There was one show where Dianna Troy and her mother (the season's write in for Majel Barrett) were talking via telepathy and the scene actually consisted of the two women looking at each other and voice overs added later. Awful. And there was this blonde security chick in the begining that seemed like a Fascist-anti-drug-bimbo that really turned me off. John de Lancie is a nice guy, though. Met him once at this Tallahassee Star Trek Convention in the basement of the Holiday Inn. I was tempted to ask him if Patrick Stewart was gay, but I had a feeling that the 50 or so Trekies present would have gotten really pissed at me.